"A Good Citizen": PC Near-Future

[Coyote]

A Good Citizen


Alan Baker was my neighbor, an older guy. He always seemed polite and quiet, never bothered anyone. His kids had all grown up and moved out, and just he and his wife shared a house in our tidy corner of suburbia.

My wife, Kayli, talked to his wife on occasion-- apparently Alan’s dad was a cop, killed in the riots of ‘10 down in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I guess he’d been about ten or twelve, somewhere in there, when it happened.

Alan was unusual in that he was always polishing and tinkering with his car. It was a 1987 Mustang, he said, an “Interceptor”, he called it, but it wasn’t a police car. It was an old gas-burner. Loud as hell, too, you could hear it coming all the way down the street.

He had to get a special environmental waiver permit to run it, and even then he could only do so for a few hours every week. Otherwise, it was kept in his garage, and the family got around in their Gaia-Electric. Still, that Mustang was his pride and joy, and I have to admit, for a stinky gas burner, it was a beauty.

It still had the original paint job on it-- cherry red, I’m sure it was full of lead. And leather seats! Shiny chrome, you name it. A cassette tape player, of all things!

The tires were the petroleum rubber based types, he paid five hundred dollars apiece for them. And he was upset because one of them was a Yokohama, not a Goodyear, like the rest. Alan always said it was best to buy American, but he was still thinking in that old mind set. . . you know, the old trade barriers, tariffs, and all the mess that caused. But it made him happy, and that car was his baby.

And I can still honestly say that one of the saddest sights in my life was the day they came and took that old car away. It just about destroyed poor old Alan. I can still see him standing there, trembling, his face pale and slack.

He just shook his head and cried like a baby, murmuring “No, no, no,” over and over again while his wife held him, and the EPA guys jacked it up on the back of the truck. He didn’t come out of the house for almost two months after that. I really felt for the old guy, he’d never harmed anyone, but what could he do?

Someone else’s irresponsibility spoils it for everyone. Isn’t that always the case?

The facts of the matter were clear. It was on the news, everything, right from the beginning. Seems these two guys down in Nevada had gotten hold of an old muscle car. Alan knew what it was, he said it was a “GTO Judge”.

The gas burners, while inefficient, could run rings around any electric. These two guys in this GTO hit a bank in some desert town and took off at speeds over 160 kilometers an hour. The cops were helpless.

The military had to be called out to stop these guys, but they weren’t captured until they’d already hit two bicyclists, killing them. The bandits killed themselves before the Army could get at them. Seemed they’d gotten their hands on some guns, too, so in the end it was all for the better that they were killed by their own hands. Life in prison would have been the only option.

In truth, it hadn’t been the first time a muscle car was used to bamboozle the cops. It had happened a few times before, but this one was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The Alliance of Citizens Against Crime pushed for-- and got-- the law that spelt the death knell for the last of the gas-burners in private hands. Too dangerous, they said, and there was no legitimate travel purpose that required such a high powered vehicle.

The only reason anyone would want one of these petroleum-gulping monsters was so they could outrun the cops. Criminals and domestic terrorists were the only people who had anything to lose, it was determined. And besides, they damaged the environment. They didn’t have the full range of safety devices. And they promoted a “car nut” street gang mentality that set a wrong example for children.

I have to admit that I was behind it all the way. I didn’t even think of the effects it would have as I clicked my mouse on the “Yes” box of the Net Ballot. No one would come take away nice old Alan’s car, would they? This was only targeted against domestic terrorists, criminals, and the like. Dangerous people.

Not elderly men who spent their time on a Sunday afternoon waxing and polishing an old piece of metal that never went outside the territory of the neighborhood. But take it they did. The EPA said a few cars would be kept, without engines, in museums. But most of them would be destroyed, recycled as much as possible.

Only the military was allowed to use fuel burning vehicles anymore. Something about horsepower-to-weight ratios, or some such.

Poor old Alan. I can never get that image out of my head. He just kind of retreated into himself. Even when he re-emerged from his domestic exile, he was still a withdrawn, wrecked man. He talked in mumbles, his eyes focused on something far away, or some time long ago.

Kayli said that his wife found him thumbing through old car magazines, tears streaming unnoticed down his face. It was when I heard that I figured, what the hell, I’ll go see if I can cheer the old guy up.

I found Alan right where his wife said he would be, in his easy chair, watching old tape videos. A stack of “Street Rod” magazines sat at the side of his cloth-covered throne. On the television screen were images of cars, racing down a narrow strip, flames shooting from their flanks like great dragons of fairy tales.

He said they were “drag races”, but the cars weren’t pulling anything. It was a glimpse into the secret world of the “car nut”, those dangerous speed freaks that needed to prop up their masculinity with a piece of expensive, stinking, unsafe, environmentally-damaging muscle cars. It was a morbid sight, yet I could not tear my eyes away.

I felt like I was a voyeur, watching two Neanderthals having sex, grunting and heaving in their cave. I was a time traveler, unseen, taking notes on this alien culture.

Alan smiled at my reaction. He asked me if I liked it, and what could I say? I was fascinated. It showed in my face, I guess, for he offered me to pull up a chair and watch.

For almost two hours we stared at the television as cars raced around in circles, darted down narrow runways, or tore through a place called Le Mans. The conversation that was to lead to the tragic events of the last week started.

“It wasn’t always this way,” Alan said morosely. I nodded agreement.

“The Nineties and two-thousands set the stage,” I agreed, reciting almost directly from my barely-remembered history school book. “Society was being stressed from all sorts of different directions.” Alan grunted, offering me a beer. He’d already helped himself to several, and I had a couple to keep the old guy company.

“Huh,” he said, noncommittal. “What do you remember?” he asked me, catching me off guard. I tried to think back to my childhood. My first cognizant memories were from about the time I was three or so. Nothing really, just flashes, impressions. I really started remembering things from about five years of age, I guess. I told him.

“I can remember back to around, oh. . . ‘33, or so,” I replied. He smiled.

“So you were born long after most of the stuff had taken place. The post-riot years, all the laws and crap they passed.” I nodded assent. I had missed the riots and crime wave years of ‘08 through ‘15, when things were really bad. I shuddered, and gained a new respect for Alan. To have lived through such years!

To have seen for himself the chaos and crime that sparked so many reforms in the government, the society. It must have been something. The Presidential Inauguration of 2016 had been heralded as the dawn of a new age for society.

President Hatchwood had proclaimed that we had finally reached the other side of the bridge to the 21st century. The reforms had made his vice-President a shoe-in for the 2020 elections. She got voted in on a landslide. Alan got up from his chair and put in another video.

“I’ll show you some of the old tapes,” he said, hitting “play”. The scene changed. Drag strip mayhem gave way to the scenes of the riots in Chicago and Los Angeles. It was a CNN archive detailing the burning of cities, the shooting and looting, the clouds of tear gas.

The military moving into the major cities, as a “temporary measure”. Now, almost fifty years later, the checkpoints were still there, providing a safety and security for the citizens that welcomed the stability brought by law and order. Police were stationed at each checkpoint as well, since the military, of course, had no arrest powers. That would be unconstitutional.

Gang members were rounded up and sentenced en masse, their criminal behavior paid for with community service all over the country. Planting trees in deforested areas, cleaning up toxic dump sites.

Guns were finally rounded up, ending the scourge of street violence forever. One touching scene was a young man with his son, an NRA cap poised on his head at a rakish angle, telling the camera that he hated to do it, but it was for the good of America. A stack of guns was piled in the back of an Army truck, ready to be taken away.

A line of people walked by, tossing their instruments of death into the back, then stepping to the desk to receive their fifty dollars. It was only fair to repay them the fair market value, after all, even if it was a patriotic duty.

“What a sad country,” Alan said in a dull monotone. He sipped at his beer.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “The cities are clean and safe. The curfews keep crime down. The environment is protected. There will be new forests planted and the schools are seeing record test scores in Cultural Tolerance. Literacy is back up over ninety percent.”

“There’s no real freedom,” Alan lamented. He watched absently as the CNN tapes continued. The Taiwan War flickered across the screen, followed by the Second Korean War, which was just now winding down.

“Freedom of the old days,” I joked. “Freedom to be unemployed, freedom to be a crime victim. Not like today,” I laughed. This was where the conversation got strange.

In retrospect, I can only guess that Alan thought I was being sarcastic. That is the only way I can explain the events that unfolded later. Alan got up and paced the floor, a little drunk. Technically, that was illegal, since that kind of behavior only led to domestic violence and spouse abuse. But Alan was a good guy, I figured, so I didn’t say anything.

“Freedom.” He said again. He looked like he was trying to grasp some wisdom that was just beyond his reach. “Freedom. It was a wilder time, less restrictions, yeah, a little less security, but hell. . .” he looked me square in the eye.

“A person was free to choose his or her own destiny, you know? Sometimes you could just bust loose and have fun. Used to be,” he said, his train of thought seeming to jump the track, “you could go to the forests without having to file a reservation and explain where you’d be, what you were taking in, having your trash weighed, giving them a detailed map of where you planned to hike. It was a wild, carefree time!”

“People got lost,” I reminded him. “Died. Now everyone has the GPS attached to their cars. And the safety chips in thier shoulders. It’s much safer today!”

“Yeah, safe.” He grunted and shook his head, almost falling over. “I remember before the satellite trackers were required for everyone. There was that thrill of being on one’s own. That was the whole fun of it!” he emphasized. I was shocked. The thrill of falling off a cliff, breaking your legs and dying slowly, painfully, in the middle of nowhere? The thrill of missing children?

“Sounds almost like you miss the dangerousness of the old days,” I said, laughing, trying to put a positive spin on the whole thing. That’s when Alan gave me the shock of my life.

“The old days weren’t so dangerous,” he said. “Hell, the media played up the whole crime wave thing. Fact is, crime was down from years before, but hell, they had to talk about something. Here. I’ll show you something,” he said, and ambled off, motioning me to follow.

I went, not even comprehending what awaited me. Alan lumbered into the garage and I followed him to where a small room had been partitioned off from the rest of the floor. He opened a padlock and pulled the door wide for me. The whole thing had an air of childhood secrecy; two kids poking around where they shouldn’t. Maybe it was the beer, I felt giddy with expectation.

What I saw when Alan turned on his desk-mounted work light wiped the grin from my face as surely as it wiped the effects of the alcohol from my blood. When I saw what sat in that narrow little room, I nearly fell over.

“Beauty, isn’t she?” Alan said, and he was so staring at it long enough so I could collect myself.

“Alan,” I croaked, “That’s a motorcycle.”

“Yessir,” he replied, “A real beaut. Kawasaki Ninja, to be exact. Wanted a Harley, but, well…” he trailed off. My mind spun. I felt like I was drunk again, but drunk with anxiety. Fear. Cars were bad enough, but the stories of the motorcycle gangs… the criminals…

“The gangs,” I said, “Didn’t the gangs use...?” I asked, indicating the bike, sitting there, dark and beetlelike in the arc of the worklight.

“Naw. The news explained it all wrong to people, you know, to scare them into passing the legislation.” With tender loving care, Alan reached out and tenderly caressed the smooth, polished chrome of the headlight.

Before we stepped out. He closed the door with a heavy sigh. “I can’t even ride it anymore,” he said sadly, “Wouldn’t dare start it up, even…” he trailed off. I felt sick.

What could I do? This was a life imprisonment offense. My lungs felt tight, I could barely breathe. I had to leave. I made small talk with Alan about the old days for a while before making an excuse to leave. The old man saw me to the door.

I was strangely scared of him now, but he was my neighbor, an acquaintance of years. How could this benign old man be a threat to anyone? I went home and nibbled at my dinner that night. Kayli could tell something was wrong but thank God she didn’t press me about it.

I wouldn’t know what to say. That our neighbor was a hooligan? A street fighting gangster? A dangerous rebel against the government? Maybe even plotting to kill the President? I hardly slept that night.

***

It was just a few weeks ago that the new legislation came down. Thanks to the Freedom of Transportation Bill, all citizens were guaranteed a right to free passage anywhere, anytime, on the busses and trains. No longer would the shackles of poverty prevent a person from enjoying their constitutional right to free transportation.

It came with a sacrifice, however, as all freedoms do. With public transportation freely available to all, the concept of the personal car was now obsolete. After all, only the selfish and socially insensitive would want to drive their own cars anymore. Why not ride the bus with the rest of your fellow citizens? And it would help the environment as well.

I was proud to do my part, and handed over my keys to the pleasant-looking young lady from the Board of Transportation. She gave me a receipt for two hundred dollars, fair market value for the Gaia-Electric car my family would no longer need.

“Thank you,” she said, entering my name into her laptop. “You’re entered into the database. You’ll receive your complimentary bus schedules via e-mail in a few minutes.” I smiled back at her.

From the corner of my eye I saw old Alan. I hadn’t spoken to him for weeks since that night. I was scared. But at the same time, I could not explain my fears. He had never actually done anything, or threatened anyone, had he? But the laws were clear and sensible. The madness had to be stopped before it became a problem. The law was proactive, not reactive.

Now, in retrospect, I wonder. Had I done the right thing? I reached out to the pleasant young lady and gently pulled her near.

“I know someone who has a motorcycle,” I said quietly. She kept completely calm, and smiled reassuringly at me. Her fingers began to fly across the keyboard.

“Really? And who might that be?” she asked sweetly. From down the street, a black van pulled into view, silently idling on its electric drives. I told her about Alan.

She typed it all in, including my insistence that Alan was just a harmless old man, that he’d never hurt anyone. I still think about that when I look at the charred remains of the house next door and remember what she’d said to me, that I shouldn’t worry, that my friend would be well treated and taken to a psychiatric ward, that I’d done the right thing.

That I’d been a good citizen.

[weemadando]

What, you think that that is set in the FUTURE? Look around you bud...

[Kuja]

Freaky.


Good.

[Xon]

Very good piece.

Very pessimistic view of the future(there are things worse than death, for an individual and a species as a whole), and unfortunately it looks like America is heading that way(barring a major disaster it probable would get that bad)

[guyver]

Very good story


But

When Guns are outlawed I will become an outlaw

[russellb6666]

good story but the day that shit happens I hope im dead or invalid because if im not im going to take a high powered rife to the head no way in hell i am going to live through shit like that

[Mike_6002]

I fear this is our future I hate Poltically Correct fundies it can kiss my Un-PC ass

But it is a good story overall, scary shit man!!!!!

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

Another chilling vision of the future. I really enjoyed it, and I hope you can keep up the good work in future fanfics.

[Sea Skimmer]

Good, story. I'll be in jail or more likely dead before I'd live in a world like that.

[Zaku-chan]

Wow. Absolutely chilling, and well-written.

[Jadeite]

Its creep, that could happen someday is the scary part.

[Falkenhorst]

I hope society collapses into the bloody fires of civil war before some travesty like that takes place. Maybe the stress on society will RIP IT ASUNDER, and for the better. I'd rather live in a hellworld of constant war and crime than a PC paradise like that.

[Luke Starkiller]

Very well written piece.

[Eleas]

<snip>

Whoa. Of all the stories I've read by you, this one was the best. Disturbing and engrossing.

Now keep writing, I need my fix.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Nice work.

[Jason von Evil]

I have seen some scarey stuff in my 19 years, but DAMN!

[Peregrin Toker]

Hmm... very well-thought. In some ways, it reminded me of Orwell's 1984.